As shown in FIG. 9, there is conventionally available a connector including a socket 81 and a header 82 for electrically interconnecting printed wiring boards (not shown) (e.g., flexible printed circuit boards or rigid boards) to which they are respectively mounted (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-165195). In the following description, up-down and left-right directions will be defined on the basis of FIG. 9 and the direction perpendicular to the up-down and left-right directions in FIG. 9 will be referred to as “front-rear direction”.
The socket 81 includes a substantially rectangular columnar socket body 811 made of an insulating material and a plurality of socket contact members 812, made by bending a strip-shaped metal plate, held in the socket body 811.
The socket body 811 has a connection recess portion 811a formed on the upper surface thereof. The socket contact members 812 are arranged side by side within the connection recess portion 811a along the longitudinal direction (or the front-rear direction) of the socket body 811. Furthermore, the socket body 811 has lead-out pathways 811b formed in the left and right side walls to communicate with the connection recess portion 811a. One-end portions of the socket contact members 812 extend through the lead-out pathways 811b and protrude outwards beyond the outer surfaces of the left and right side walls of the socket body 811, respectively.
The header 82 includes a header body 821 made of an insulating material and a plurality of header contact members 822, made by being a strip-shaped metal plate, held in the header body 821.
If the header 82 is inserted into the connection recess portion 811a, the header contact members 822 make conductive contact with the socket contact members 812, allowing the socket 81 and the header 82 to be electrically connected to each other.
The tip end portions of the socket contact members 812 protruding from the outer surfaces of the respective side walls of the socket body 811 are arranged side by side along the front-rear direction and soldered to the corresponding wiring patterns of the printed wiring boards. In this regard, if the positions of the tip end portions of the socket contact members 812 are highly non-uniform in the up-down direction, it is likely that the connection state between the socket 81 and the printed wiring boards becomes unstable.
For that reason, before soldering the socket 81 and the printed wiring boards together, it is necessary to measure the planarity of the tip end portions of the socket contact members 812 and to inspect whether the deviations of the tip end portions fall within a prescribed range. In this connection, as shown in FIGS. 10A to 11, the inspection is a gauge inspection conducted by use of a rail 91 on which the socket 81 is placed and a pair of inspection jigs 92 provided on one surface of the rail 91 in a spaced-apart opposing relationship with each other. The socket 81 is conveyed along the rail 91 by an air blown toward the socket 81.
The inspection jigs 92 are provided to oppose to each other in the direction perpendicular to the conveying direction of the socket 81 (namely, in the direction indicated by an arrow in FIG. 10B). The socket 81 conveyed passes through between the inspection jigs 92. At this time, if the tip end portions of the socket contact members 812 pass through the gaps G between the rail 91 and the inspection jigs 92 without making contact with the inspection jigs 92, it is determined that the socket 81 has a good quality (the deviation of the tip end portions is small). In contrast, if the socket contact members 812 make contact with the inspection jigs 92, it is determined that the socket 81 has a poor quality (the deviation of the tip end portions is great).
In this regard, the left-right dimension, i.e., width dimension, of the socket 81 in FIG. 11 is assumed to be “L”. The protrusion length of the socket contact members 812 protruding beyond the socket body 811 is assumed to be “P”. The overlapping amount between the socket contact members 812 and the inspection jigs 92 is assumed to be “Q”.
In the conventional connector mentioned above, a demand has existed for reduction in size. This requires the width L to be set small. In order to make the width L small, there is a need to reduce the protrusion length P of the socket contact members 812.
If the protrusion length P is set small as shown in FIG. 12, however, it becomes impossible to make the overlapping amount Q great enough (the overlapping amount Q is zero in FIG. 12) although it is possible to reduce the width L. This poses a problem in that the inspection cannot be conducted in an accurate manner. Alternatively, an image inspection may be used as another inspection method. However, the image inspection is less accurate than the gauge inspection set forth above.